MessageMedia founder Grant Rule buys Blair House for $75m

The entrepreneur, who sold his firm for $1.7bn last year and had been quietly looking for a new home, joins fellow tech players in Melbourne’s premier locale.

The mansion sports oak floors, timber panelling, Georgian windows and a large reception hall.

The country’s technology royalty is making its mark at the top end of Melbourne’s luxury housing market with MessageMedia co-founder Grant Rule emerging as the purchaser of a $75m Toorak mansion.

Rule is buying the ten bedroom Blair House estate which is set on 7,800sq m of botanic parklands in Toorak’s premier boulevard, St George’s Rd.

The main house is a Georgian Revival residence, designed in 1936 by architects Hughes and Orme, and its expansive gardens were once part of the grounds of Victoria’s first Government House.

The mansion sports oak floors, timber panelling, Georgian windows and a large reception hall which spills into a series of formal and family rooms.

The entrepreneur sold the SMS marketing technology firm to Swedish rival Sinch for $1.7bn in mid-2021 and had been quietly looking for a new home.

That business is the country’s largest provider of SMS-based marketing communications and has more than 350 staff but Rule has switched focus to philanthropic endeavours of late.

He joins another more recent technology player, Ed Craven – a crypto king who bought another Toorak mansion for $80m in a deal agreed in the same week in August – at the top of Melbourne’s property tree.

Grant Rule

The financial success of MessageMedia led to the creation of the Susan McKinnon Foundation in 2015, which is Rule’s philanthropic vehicle. After nearly two decades working in technology, he now focuses much of his time on the foundation.

The estate is being sold by the Nanut family with the contest over the estate of engineer Radovan Basil Nanut set to play out in the Victorian Supreme Court after his son, James, launched legal action against his two sisters and mother.

Nanut Snr passed away in 2004, leaving his estate to his wife, Marguerite, and three children James, Pia and Elizabeth. The assets included the house on St Georges Rd.

Nanut Jnr claimed in an affidavit filed with the court his percentage of his late father’s estate was worth at least $6m. He launched proceedings in 2020 in a bid to execute his father’s will and sell the St George’s Rd home in the face of opposition from his mother and sister, Pia, who still lived in the main house on the estate.

However, the matter, which was listed to be heard in chambers on Friday morning, may soon be resolved.

The gardens and outdoor areas at the St Georges Rd property.

The sales of the two Toorak homes have re-rated the Melbourne market and came ahead of a series of a series of sales of top class homes.

In an unusual turn of events, the pair of Melbourne sales eclipsed the run of very strong Sydney mansion sales, which have broken the $50m barrier during the spring selling season.

The deals show that the top end of the market is running even as the broader housing market comes under pressure from higher interest rates and the slowing economy with many economists predicting further home price falls next year.

The Blair House deal was negotiated by agent Marcus Chiminello of Marshall White Stonnington but the buyer’s identity was kept under wraps and he declined to comment.

Despite the size of the most recent sale, the once little-known 27-year-old cryptocurrency casino owner Craven has been the most active buyer in Toorak this year.

Not only did he smash the Victorian record for a residential sale with his purchase of Toorak’s “ghost mansion”, the unfinished house, which was sold by David Yu, director of property developer Ausvest Holdings, with his $80m purchase in August.

He also bought another Toorak home in March, splashing out $38m for the corner block of Orrong Rd. That four-bedroom entertainer was designed for indoor and outdoor living, with a natural colour scheme, integrated light flooring, dark oak cabinetry and stone elements.

Craven is the public face of Stake.com, a privately owned cryptocurrency-friendly online casino that offers sports betting and casino games.

Although Craven is Australian, Stake is a global business with hundreds of employees, the majority based in Europe. The business also sponsors English soccer teams such as Everton.

The two sales have encouraged a series of listings at the top end of the Melbourne mansion market.

Originally published as MessageMedia founder Grant Rule buys Blair House for $75m